Friday, November 30, 2012

I'm surprised it wasn't reported by
the BBC as yet another example of Israeli aggression. Where was Jon
Donnison? Where was Jeremy Bowen? Perhaps it will surface as a news
story in the Guardian or Independent in the near future.

"Israeli woman throws
bell at Palestinian"

In yet another blatant act of
Israeli aggression, a Jewish woman punched and scratched and threw things at a
Palestinian who wanted to murder her and her children. He was armed with
only a knife, a simple and unsophisticated weapon which, according to Jeremy
Bowen's classification of weaponry, can only do harm in the
event of a direct hit. Using a knife is also much more dangerous
for the potential murderer as it requires him/her to get close to the intended
victim instead of firing rockets from afar and running away.

In a totally disproportionate
response, the woman used highly sophisticated weaponry including a heavy
bell to fight off this brave peace-loving man who was only trying to
acquit this obligation to Article 7 of the Hamas Charter. In the
face of this onslaught, the Palestinian attempted to make his escape but was
brutally murdered by an IDF terrorist when he refused to
stop.

According to his friends the
deceased was a simple, peace-loving family man whose life was dedicated to
hating Jews and teaching others to do the same. He had hoped to raise
several suicide bombers but this unwarranted attack by an Israeli has
prevented him from achieving his life's ambition. "He has left us a fine
legacy and we will do everything we can to fulfil it" said a family
member. "That's the least we can do. If we could do even less, we
would."

Sources in Syria report that the
government there is meeting to discuss calling for Israel to be brought
before the International Criminal Court to answer for this
atrocity.

Palestine should be careful what it wishes for. I think it is highly likely that, if the OTP investigated the situation in Gaza, Palestinians would end up in the dock long before Israelis. From a legal perspective, Fatou Bensouda would find it much easier to prosecute Hamas’s deliberate attacks on Israeli civilians than Israel’s disproportionate attacks, collective punishment of Palestinians, and transfer of its civilians into occupied territory. The latter crimes are fraught with ambiguity and difficult to prove. I know I wouldn’t start with them, were I the Prosecutor.

Well, could they be charged with violating the UN 181 decision? Where it reads: “…Appeals to all Governments and all peoples to refrain from taking any action which might hamper or delay the carrying out of these recommendations” or perhaps elements in the Cease-Fire agreements? Or are they liable only from, say, 1964 when the PLO was founded?

And comments there:

So, if the Rome Statute is ratified with retroactive jurisdiction adopted, could those people holding official positions within the Palestinian government be subject to prosecution for acts perpetrated years ago before the establishment / since of the governing authority? If this is the case, adopting retroactive jurisdiction of the ICC seems a rather foolish and dangerous move by the Palestinian government! (yes, assuming that the officials in question can be connected to the crimes via a traditional mode of participation, such as co-perpetration, aiding and abetting, or command responsibility.)

U.S.
Must Impose Severe
Economic Consequences for
UN’s Irresponsible Support
for Palestinian Statehood
Scheme, Ros-Lehtinen Says

(WASHINGTON) – U.S. Rep.
Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL),
Chairman of the House
Foreign Affairs Committee,
issued the following statement regarding the
United Nations General
Assembly’s vote today to
adopt a resolution granting
“Palestine” (the Palestine
Liberation Organization) the
status of non-member
observer state at the UN.
Statement by Ros-Lehtinen:

“Abu Mazen, instead of
condemning the Gaza rocket
fire and negotiating with
Israel for lasting peace,
spent the past week
congratulating Hamas for its
efforts to murder Israeli
civilians, while offering
condolences for Hamas’s
‘martyrs.’ Now the UN’s
vote to grant de facto UN
recognition of a
non-existent Palestinian
state has pushed peace with
Israel even further away.

“It is regretful that so
many nations supported this
unilateral action by the PLO
instead of endorsing a
bilateral, two-state
solution between Israel and
the Palestinians.

“It’s crystal clear that
Abu Mazen and his cronies
are not partners for peace
and do not value their
relationship with the U.S.
The U.S must stand with our
ally Israel and offer no
U.S. taxpayer dollars and no
political support for the
PLO. As other UN bodies
will no doubt use General
Assembly resolution as an
excuse to grant membership
to a non-existent
Palestinian state, U.S. law
is clear: UN agencies that
grant membership to a
Palestinian state lose their
U.S. funding. If the
Administration again seeks
to gut U.S. law and keep
funding those reckless UN
agencies, Congress’ response
must be simple: No.

Many have expressed concern that the bid for upgraded status is not a
reflection of what is happening on the ground, but strictly a lawfare
tool aimed at manipulating legal organs to condemn Israel for its
defensive maneuvers in Operation Cast Lead and Operation Pillar of
Defense. However, If the PA uses its upgraded status to become a party
to the Rome Statute, it would simultaneously constitute acceptance of
the court's jurisdiction, rendering the PA vulnerable to prosecution for
crimes committed against its own people.

But what about me?

While many are concerned about the Pals. now employing their new status to launch higher grade lawfare against Israel, there is that other aspect, not for going after the Pals. for crimes against its own people but does Israel or do Israelis or Jews or anyone else now also have a certain leverage to use aspects of law as well?

Mr. President of the General Assembly,
Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen,

Palestine comes today to the United Nations
General Assembly at a time when it is still tending to its wounds and
still burying its beloved martyrs of children, women and men who have
fallen victim to the latest Israeli aggression, still searching for
remnants of life amid the ruins of homes destroyed by Israeli bombs on
the Gaza Strip, wiping out entire families, their men, women and
children murdered along with their dreams, their hopes, their future and
their longing to live an ordinary life and to live in freedom and
peace.

Palestine comes today to the General Assembly
because it believes in peace and because its people, as proven in past
days, are in desperate need of it.

Palestine comes today to this prestigious
international forum, representative and protector of international
legitimacy, reaffirming our conviction that the international community
now stands before the last chance to save the two-State solution.

Palestine comes to you today at a defining
moment regionally and internationally, in order to reaffirm its presence
and to try to protect the possibilities and the foundations of a just
peace that is deeply hoped for in our region.

Mr. President,
Ladies and Gentlemen,

The Israeli aggression against our people in
the Gaza Strip has confirmed once again the urgent and pressing need to
end the Israeli occupation and for our people to gain their freedom and
independence. This aggression also confirms the Israeli Government’s
adherence to the policy of occupation, brute force and war, which in
turn obliges the international community to shoulder its
responsibilities towards the Palestinian people and towards peace.

This is why we are here today.

I say with great pain and sorrow… there was
certainly no one in the world that required that tens of Palestinian
children lose their lives in order to reaffirm the above-mentioned
facts. There was no need for thousands of deadly raids and tons of
explosives for the world to be reminded that there is an occupation that
must come to an end and that there are a people that must be liberated.
And, there was no need for a new, devastating war in order for us to be
aware of the absence of peace.

This is why we are here today.

Mr. President,
Ladies and Gentlemen,

The Palestinian people, who miraculously
recovered from the ashes of Al-Nakba of 1948, which was intended to
extinguish their being and to expel them in order to uproot and erase
their presence, which was rooted in the depths of their land and depths
of history. In those dark days, when hundreds of thousands of
Palestinians were torn from their homes and displaced within and outside
of their homeland, thrown from their beautiful, embracing, prosperous
country to refugee camps in one of the most dreadful campaigns of ethnic
cleansing and dispossession in modern history. In those dark days, our
people had looked to the United Nations as a beacon of hope and appealed
for ending the injustice and for achieving justice and peace, the
realization of our rights, and our people still believe in this and
continue to wait.

This is why we are here today.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

In the course of our long national struggle,
our people have always strived to ensure harmony and conformity between
the goals and means of their struggle and international law and spirit
of the era in accordance with prevailing realities and changes. And, our
people always have strived not to lose their humanity, their highest,
deeply-held moral values and their innovative abilities for survival,
steadfastness, creativity and hope, despite the horrors that befell them
and continue befall them today as a consequence of Al-Nakba and its
horrors.

Despite the enormity and weight of this task,
the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), the sole, legitimate
representative of the Palestinian people and the constant leader of
their revolution and struggle, has consistently strived to achieve this
harmony and conformity.

When the Palestine National Council decided in
1988 to pursue the Palestinian peace initiative and adopted the
Declaration of Independence, which was based on resolution 181 (II) (29
November 1947), adopted by your august body, it was in fact undertaking,
under the leadership of the late President Yasser Arafat, a historic,
difficult and courageous decision that defined the requirements for a
historic reconciliation that would turn the page on war, aggression and
occupation.

This was not an easy matter. Yet, we had the
courage and sense of high responsibility to make the right decision to
protect the higher national interests of our people and to confirm our
adherence to international legitimacy, and it was a decision which in
that same year was welcomed, supported and blessed by this high body
that is meeting today.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

We have heard and you too have heard
specifically over the past months the incessant flood of Israeli threats
in response to our peaceful, political and diplomatic endeavor for
Palestine to acquire non-member observer State in the United Nations.
And, you have surely witnessed how some of these threats have been
carried out in a barbaric and horrific manner just days ago in the Gaza
Strip.

We have not heard one word from any Israeli
official expressing any sincere concern to save the peace process. On
the contrary, our people have witnessed, and continue to witness, an
unprecedented intensification of military assaults, the blockade,
settlement activities and ethnic cleansing, particularly in Occupied
East Jerusalem, and mass arrests, attacks by settlers and other
practices by which this Israeli occupation is becoming synonymous with
an apartheid system of colonial occupation, which institutionalizes the
plague of racism and entrenches hatred and incitement.

What permits the Israeli Government to
blatantly continue with its aggressive policies and the perpetration of
war crimes stems from its conviction that it is above the law and that
it has immunity from accountability and consequences. This belief is
bolstered by the failure by some to condemn and demand the cessation of
its violations and crimes and by position that equate the victim and the
executioner.

The moment has arrived for the world to say clearly: Enough of aggression, settlements and occupation.

This is why we are here now.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

We did not come here seeking to delegitimize a
State established years ago, and that is Israel; rather we came to
affirm the legitimacy of the State that must now achieve its
independence, and that is Palestine. We did not come here to add further
complications to the peace process, which Israel’s policies have thrown
into the intensive care unit; rather we came to launch a final serious
attempt to achieve peace. Our endeavor is not aimed at terminating what
remains of the negotiations process, which has lost its objective and
credibility, but rather aimed at trying to breathe new life into the
negotiations and at setting a solid foundation for it based on the terms
of reference of the relevant international resolutions in order for the
negotiations to succeed.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

On behalf of the Palestine Liberation
Organization, I say: We will not give up, we will not tire, and our
determination will not wane and we will continue to strive to achieve a
just peace.

However, above all and after all, I affirm
that our people will not relinquish their inalienable national rights,
as defined by United Nations resolutions. And our people cling to the
right to defend themselves against aggression and occupation and they
will continue their popular, peaceful resistance and their epic
steadfastness and will continue to build on their land. And, they will
end the division and strengthen their national unity. We will accept no
less than the independence of the State of Palestine, with East
Jerusalem as its capital, on all the Palestinian territory occupied in
1967, to live in peace and security alongside the State of Israel, and a
solution for the refugee issue on the basis of resolution 194 (III), as
per the operative part of the Arab Peace Initiative.

Yet, we must repeat here once again our
warning: the window of opportunity is narrowing and time is quickly
running out. The rope of patience is shortening and hope is withering.
The innocent lives that have been taken by Israeli bombs – more than 168
martyrs, mostly children and women, including 12 members of one family,
the Dalou family, in Gaza – are a painful reminder to the world that
this racist, colonial occupation is making the two-State solution and
the prospect for realizing peace a very difficult choice, if not
impossible.

It is time for action and the moment to move forward.

This is why we are here today.

Mr. President,
Ladies and Gentleman,

The world is being asked today to undertake a
significant step in the process of rectifying the unprecedented
historical injustice inflicted on the Palestinian people since Al-Nakba
of 1948.

Every voice supporting our endeavor today is a
most valuable voice of courage, and every State that grants support
today to Palestine’s request for non-member observer State status is
affirming its principled and moral support for freedom and the rights of
peoples and international law and peace.

Your support for our endeavor today will send a
promising message – to millions of Palestinians on the land of
Palestine, in the refugee camps both in the homeland and the Diaspora,
and to the prisoners struggling for freedom in Israel’s prisons – that
justice is possible and that there is a reason to be hopeful and that
the peoples of the world do not accept the continuation of the
occupation.

This is why we are here today.

Your support for our endeavor today will give a
reason for hope to a people besieged by a racist, colonial occupation.
Your support will confirm to our people that they are not alone and
their adherence to international law is never going to be a losing
proposition.

In our endeavor today to acquire non-member
State status for Palestine in the United Nations, we reaffirm that
Palestine will always adhere to and respect the Charter and resolutions
of the United Nations and international humanitarian law, uphold
equality, guarantee civil liberties, uphold the rule of law, promote
democracy and pluralism, and uphold and protect the rights of women.

As we promised our friends and our brothers
and sisters, we will continue to consult with them upon the approval of
your esteemed body our request to upgrade Palestine’s status. We will
act responsibly and positively in our next steps, and we will to work to
strengthen cooperation with the countries and peoples of the world for
the sake of a just peace.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

Sixty-five years ago on this day, the United
Nations General Assembly adopted resolution 181 (II), which partitioned
the land of historic Palestine into two States and became the birth
certificate for Israel.

Sixty-five years later and on the same day,
which your esteemed body has designated as the International Day of
Solidarity with the Palestinian People, the General Assembly stands
before a moral duty, which it must not hesitate to undertake, and stands
before a historic duty, which cannot endure further delay, and before a
practical duty to salvage the chances for peace, which is urgent and
cannot be postponed.

Mr. President,
Ladies and Gentlemen,

The General Assembly is called upon today to issue a birth certificate of the reality of the State of Palestine.

Thursday, November 29, 2012

Once upon a time, in late 1918,in a far-away placed called Palestine:-

The Australians and New Zealanders in Gallipoli were shortly withdrawn. In their camps at Tripoli and on the Philistine plain the light horsemen waited, eager in the prospect of early return to Australia. But an unfortunate incident was destined to throw a shadow over the last days in Palestine of Anzac Mounted Division. Close to the camps of the three brigades in December was the native village of Surafend[Sarafand; Tzrifin]. All the Arabs of western Palestine were thieves by instinct, and those who dwelt close to the Jewish settlements were especially practised and daring. Throughout the campaign the British policy, as already noticed, was to treat these debased people west of the Jordan as devout Moslems, kin not only to the Arabs of the Hejaz but to the Mohammedans of India. And the Arabs, a crafty race, quick to discern British unwillingness to punish their misdeeds, exploited their licence to extreme limits.

They learned, also, that there was a disposition in the British Army to assume without justification that any looting and other similar offenses practised by the troops against the natives had been committed by the Australians. Consequently, if the Arabs missed a sheep from their flocks, they were emphatic that a soldier in a big hat had been seen prowling in the neighbourhood. Seldom punished, they became very impudent in their thefts from all British camps, and at times ventured to murder. All troops may have suffered equally; but, while the British endured the outrages without active resentment, the Australians and New Zealanders burned with indignation, and again and again asked for retaliation, but without obtaining redress. After the armistice a few men of Anzac Mounted Division were shot by the Arabs, and the resentment in Chaytor's division became dangerously bitter.

The natives of Surafend were notorious for their petty thieving. Prompted, perhaps, by the knowledge that the Anzac camps would soon pass for ever from their midst, and emboldened by the immunity they enjoyed, they grew audacious in their pilfering. They were reinforced, too, by a body of nomad Bedouins camped close to their village. The Australians and New Zealanders, sleeping soundly, were a simple prey to the cunning, barefooted robbers, and night after night men lost property from their tents. One night a New Zealander of the machine-gun squadron was disturbed by an Arab pulling at a bag which served him as a pillow. Springing up in his shirt, he chased the native through the camp and out on to the sand-hills, shouting to the picquets on the horselines as he ran. As he overtook the native, the man turned, shot him with a revolver through the body, and escaped. The New Zealander died as the picquets reached him.

The camp was immediately aroused, and the New Zealanders, working with ominous deliberation, followed the footsteps of the Arab over the loose sand to Surafend. They then threw a strong cordon round the village and waited for morning, when the head men were summoned and ordered to surrender the murderer. The sheikhs were evasive, and pleaded ignorance. During the day the matter was taken up by the staff of the division, but at nightfall the demand of the men for justice was still unsatisfied.

Meanwhile they had resolutely maintained their guard about the village, and no Arab was allowed to leave. That which followed cannot be justified; but in fairness to the New Zealanders, who were the chief actors, and to the Australians who gave them hearty support, the spirit of the men at that time must be considered. They were the pioneers and the leaders in a long campaign. Theirs been the heaviest sacrifice. The three brigades of Anzac Mounted Division had been for almost three years comrades in arms, and rarely had a body of men been bound together by such ties of common heroic endeavour and affection. From the Canal onward men had again and again proudly thrown away their lives to save their wounded from the enemy. Not once in the long advance had a hard-pressed, isolated body ever signalled in vain for support. The war task was now completed and they, a band of sworn brothers tested in a hundred fights, were going home. To them the loss of a veteran comrade by foul murder, at the hands of a race they despised, was a crime which called for instant justice. They were in no mood for delay.

In their movement against Surafend, therefore, they felt that, while wreaking vengeance on the Arabs, they would at the same time work off their old feeling against the bias of the disciplinary branch of General Headquarters, and its studied omission to punish Arabs for crime. They were angry and bitter beyond sound reasoning. All day the New Zealanders quietly organised for their work in Surafend, and early in the night marched out many hundreds strong and surrounded the village. In close support and full sympathy were large bodies of Australians. Good or bad, the cause of the New Zealanders was theirs. Entering the village, the New Zealanders grimly passed out all the women and children, and then, armed chiefly with heavy sticks, fell upon the men and at the same time fired the houses. Many Arabs were killed, few escaped without injury; the village was demolished. The flames from the wretched houses lit up the countryside, and Allenby and his staff could not fail to see the conflagration and hear the shouts of the troops and the cries of their victims.

The Anzacs, having finished with Surafend, raided and burned the neighbouring nomad camp, and then went quietly back to their lines. In the morning all the disciplinary machinery of the army was as active as hitherto it had been tardy. General Headquarters demanded the men who had led the attack and had been guilty of the killing. The Anzacs stood firm; not a single individual could definitely be charged. Allenby wasted no time in expressing his mind to the division The brigades were assembled on foot in hollow square, and the Commander-in-Chief addressed them in strong, and even, one might say, ill-considered language. He used terms which became his high position as little as the business at Surafend had been worthy of the great soldiers before him. The division fully expected strong disciplinary action for Surafend, and would have accepted it without resentment. But the independent manhood of the Anzacs could not accept personal abuse from the Commander-in-Chief. Allenby's outburst left the division sore but unpunished.

______________From Chapter XLV, pages 787to 791, of Volume VII of "The Official History of Australia in theWar of 1914 to 1918" by H. S. Gullett, reprinted by permission of the
Australian War Memorial.

...came across a tape recording of an old Light Horseman, Ted O'Brien, who described in graphic detail how he and his comrades had "had a good issue of rum" and "done their blocks" in Surafend, and how they "went through [the village] with a bayonet."
The Bedouin, O'Brien says, were "wicked … You'd shoot them on sight."

Of the massacre at Surafend, he says "it was a real bad thing … It was ungodly."
Daley says that, while "some people would no doubt define Surafend as a war crime, I haven't called it that. Technically I don't think it was covered back then by the Geneva Conventions, and it actually happened in December 1918 … after the war ended."
No one was charged but in 1921 Australia paid compensation of £515 to the British, who then ruled Palestine, for the destruction of the village. (New Zealand paid £858; the British paid £686 because a small number of Scottish soldiers had participated.) But the massacre stained the previously unimpeachable reputation of the Light Horse. The British commander-in-chief, General Sir Edmund Allenby, is said to have called them "cowards and murderers".
Daley points out that 20,000 Light Horsemen were deployed during World War I, only a fraction of whom took part at Surafend. "This incident highlights war's moral complexity and how otherwise good men can do terrible things..."

...HUGH FOOT, a district commissioner in 1930s Palestine who
narrowly escaped assassination by Arab terrorists, later recalled the arbitrary
nature of house demolitions: “When we thought that a village was harboring
rebels, we’d go there and mark one of the large houses. Then, if an incident was
traced to that village, we’d blow up the house we’d marked.” The tactic was
“drastic,” High Commissioner Harold MacMichael conceded, “but the situation has
demanded drastic powers.”

An Associated Press correspondent permitted to
travel with a British anti-terror unit in October 1938 reported how he watched
them “blow up with dynamite about a dozen houses in an Arab village from which
shots twice were fired at the troops... [W]hen the troops left there was little
else remaining of the once busy village except a pile of mangled
masonry.”

In another Arab town, Miar, the British troops “dynamited about
forty stone houses” and arrested hundreds of villagers. Sometimes Arab detainees
were “put to to work building roads.”

The Aqsa foundation for endowment and heritage said the Israeli
occupation authority (IOA) intends to build soon a huge synagogue called
the Jewel of Israel in the heart of the old city of occupied Jerusalem. In a press release on Thursday, the foundation said the IOA would
build this synagogue about 200 meters away from the western side of the
Aqsa Mosque at the pretext of renovating an ancient synagogue.

It noted that this synagogue would be the third of its kind in recent
years after the IOA had built the synagogues of Hurva and Issac tent,
affirming that all the three synagogues were built on the ruins of
endowed Islamic holy sites.

The foundation affirmed that the restoration of this synagogue is
aimed at Judaizing the general Arab scene in Jerusalem and minimizing
the greatness of the Palestinian Islamic and Christian holy monuments,
especially, the Aqsa Mosque and its Dome of Rock.

You read that correctly:

about 200 meters away from the western side of the
Aqsa Mosque

So, no synagogues allowed in Jerusalem? Two hundred meters is a fair distance away.

How far do they want us to be form our holy site which is only their third most sacred site whereas it is our only truly holy site.

It took perhaps a bit longer than needed but the truth, that began with intrepid bloggers, to come out is now becoming the 'smoking gun' to accuse international media outlets with working hand-in-hand with the terror groups in Gaza.

BBC Staffer Who Lost Child During Israel-Hamas Conflict Blames “Jews,” Tied to Hamas

Will it be reported in the mainstream media themselves? At the NYTimes media blog, the BBC, et al.?

Here are the questions the IDF Spokesman's Office asks:

Should a senior Islamic Jihad commander who paints “TV” on his car be considered a journalist?

Should a cameraman for a Hamas-owned and operated television network be considered a journalist?

Should a radio show host who wears the uniform of a terrorist group be considered a journalist?

If “yes” is the answer to these three questions — if the clear line between terrorists and journalists is blurred and there is no standard for the definition of “journalist” — it is likely that Palestinian terrorists will continue using journalism as a cover for terrorism.

Poland has not yet perished,So long as we still live.What the alien force has taken from us,We shall retrieve with a sabre.March, march, Dąbrowski,From the Italian land to Poland.Under your commandWe shall rejoin the nation.

7. What are the implications of this initiative on Israeli settlements?
If the Palestinian state would become a party to the International Criminal Court, the issue of Israeli settlements could become an issue of international criminal law. This, under the article in the Statute of the Court stating that the transfer, whether direct or indirect, of the population of the occupying power into occupied territory constitutes a war crime. This could potentially open the door to the prosecution of Israelis responsible for establishing or expanding settlements.

So how come when Jordan illegally occupied Judea and Samaria and transferred in its poulation. no one did anything?

In an op-ed at the Washington Post, Falling for Hamas’s media manipulation by Michael Oren, Israel’s ambassador to the United States writes:

...Hamas has a military strategy to paralyze southern Israel with short- and middle-range rockets while launching Iranian-made missiles at Tel Aviv. With our precision air force, top-notch intelligence and committed citizens army, we can defend ourselves against these dangers...For all of its bluster, Hamas does not threaten Israel’s existence.

But it tries to and with more assistance from Iran, who knows?

Then he notes:

But Hamas also has a media strategy. Its purpose is to portray Israel’s unparalleled efforts [so as to] pervert Israel’s rightful acts of self-defense into war crimes. Its goals are to isolate Israel internationally, to tie its hands from striking back at those trying to kill our citizens and to delegitimize the Jewish State. Hamas knows that it cannot destroy us militarily but believes that it might do so through the media.

So, does Hamas threaten Israel's existence, or not?

I'm mixed up.

Oren then informs us what Hamas wants:-

It seeks to instill a visceral disgust for any Israeli act of self-defense, even one taken after years of unprovoked aggression...If Hamas cannot win the war, it wants to win the story of the war.

We see it our mandate to rebuild football infrastructure which has been destroyed. We will also rebuild the stadium in Gaza, which has been destroyed. Football brings people together and we will support any re-construction necessary when football infrastructure is destroyed through disasters.

Maybe let FIFA know how you feel about this throwing good money after bad?

I left this comment:

Since the Gaza Staidum was used as a launching site for missiles aimed at civilians, what "disaster" are you referring to in your statement? And if you insiste upon rebuilding, will you set in place supervision visits to assure that this war crime will not be repeated, so that Israel will have no reason to bomb your headquarters?

Since we are a state-sponsored institution, I doubt that it will be an electioneering event although some wags here claim he might set up a new list with Benny Begin but that's probably just a bad joke.

Maybe Iran? After all, the 'Begin Doctrine' has been on the table for years now.

Disbanding the electoral bloc with Yisrael Beiteinu?

It's always so exciting to live here.

It is November 29, Partition Day and the Pals. are at it in the UN. Maybe he'll say something very Zionist?

__________

My last assumption was the correct one. As soon as I have more details, will further update.

UPDATE

In short, it was a pool press conference, Hebrew and English.

He said:

a) nothing the UN does will affect the historical connection between the people of Israel and the Land of Israel.

b) the UN will not alter the reality of what occurs here which will be concluded through negotiations.

c) and since Israel unilaterally disengaged from Gaza and received rockets, a Hamas-regime and Iranian weapons supply, we will not disregard threats to our national security.

____________

Quotation from Herb Keinon:

Bibi on UN: "Don't get excited. Unimportant how many vote against us, no force in world wil get me to compromise Israel's security."

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, this morning (Thursday, 29 November 2012), at the Menachem Begin Heritage Center in Jerusalem, made the following statement:

"Israel is prepared to live in peace with a Palestinian state, but for peace to endure, Israel’s security must be protected. The Palestinians must recognize the Jewish State and they must be prepared to end the conflict with Israel once and for all. None of these vital interests, these vital interests of peace, none of them appear in the resolution that will be put forward before the General Assembly today and that is why Israel cannot accept it. The only way to achieve peace is through agreements that are reached by the parties directly; through valid negotiations between themselves, and not through UN resolutions that completely ignore Israel’s vital security and national interests. And because this resolution is so one-sided, it doesn’t advance peace, it pushes it backwards.

As for the rights of the Jewish people in this land, I have a simple message for those people gathered in the General Assembly today: No decision by the UN can break the 4000-year-old bond between the people of Israel and the land of Israel."

You'd think Israel was almost the only country involved in the issue of "occupied territories" if you depended on the media.

But review this material on the Western Sahara and think to yourself - this is so like Israel, so why does Israel get such a bad press in such and outlandish fashion:-

Nationalism emerged in the 1960s, as nomadic Saharans, or Saharawis, settled in the region.

Polisario was set up on 10 May 1973 and established itself as the sole representative of the Saharan people. Some 100,000 refugees still live in Polisario's camps in Algeria.

In October 1975 the International Court of Justice rejected territorial claims by Morocco and Mauritania. The court recognised the Saharawis' right to self-determination and Spain agreed to organise a referendum.

But in November 1975, Moroccan King Hassan II ordered a "Green March" of over 300,000 Moroccans into the territory. Spain backed down and negotiated a settlement with Morocco and Mauritania, known as the Madrid Agreement.

...Polisario declared the Saharan Arab Democratic Republic (SADR) on 27 February 1976 and announced its first government on 4 March...In August 1978, one month after a coup, a new Mauritanian government signed a peace deal with Polisario and renounced all territorial claims.

Morocco moved to occupy areas allocated to Mauritania. Algeria in turn allowed refugees to settle in its southern town of Tindouf, where Polisario still has its main base.

Polisario led a guerrilla war against Moroccan forces until 1991.

In April 1991 the UN established Minurso, the United Nations Mission for a Referendum in Western Sahara...In September 1991 a UN-brokered ceasefire was declared.

The peace plan provided for a transition period, leading to a referendum in January 1992. Western Saharans would choose between independence and integration with Morocco...UN special envoy James Baker mediated in talks between Polisario and Morocco in London, Lisbon and Houston in 1997, then in London again in 2000.

Agreements were reached on the release of POWs...In a new bid to break the deadlock, James Baker submitted a "Framework Agreement", known as the Third Way, in June 2001.

It provided for autonomy for Saharawis under Moroccan sovereignty, a referendum after a four-year transition period, and voting rights for Moroccan settlers resident in Western Sahara for over a year.

This formula was rejected by Polisario and Algeria. Then in July 2003, the UN adopted a compromise resolution proposing that Western Sahara become a semi-autonomous region of Morocco for a transition period of up to five years.

...in November 2010, several people were killed in violent clashes between Moroccan security forces and protesters near the capital Laayoune, shortly before UN-mediated talks on the future of the territory were due to open in New York.

Wednesday, November 28, 2012

Rabbi David Rosen is endorsing a new Saudi interfaith
initiative in Austria by joining its 'board of directors'.

The group is called: King Abdullah Bin Abdulaziz International Centre for
Interreligious and Intercultural Dialogue (KAICIID).

There were other Rabbis at the launch of KAICIID, including Chief Rabbi of Moscow Pinchas Goldschmidt. [Update: and Prof. L. Schiffman]

Such Saudi interfaith organisations are set up precisely to
legitimise and mainstream figures involved in financing terrorism and propagating Islamist ideology and of course, anti-Semitism. The
Rabbis along with
several Christian clericswho have joined KAICIID, or participate in its activities, are playing the role of 'very useful idiots'.

Start
with a reporter who likes to be responsive to readers, is spontaneous
and impressionistic...Put that reporter in one
of the most scrutinized and sensitive jobs in journalism – the Jerusalem
bureau chief of The New York Times. Now
add Facebook and Twitter...Words go from nascent, half-formed thoughts to
permanent pronouncements to the world at the touch of a key.The result is very likely to be problematic. And for that bureau chief, Jodi Rudoren, who moved to Israel from New York earlier this year, and her editors at The Times, it has been.

In terms of social media, Ms. Rudoren has had a rocky start in her new position.Within
a few days of taking the post, she had sent some Twitter messages that
brought criticism, and had people evaluating her politics before she had
dug into the reporting work before her...Ms. Rudoren regrets some of the language she used, particularly the expression “ho-hum.”

“I
should have talked about steadfastness or resiliency,” she told me by
phone on Tuesday. “That was a ridiculous word to use.” In general, she
said, “I just wasn’t careful enough.”

Now
The Times is taking steps to make sure that Ms. Rudoren’s further
social media efforts go more smoothly. The foreign editor, Joseph
Kahn, is assigning an editor on the foreign desk in New York to work
closely with Ms. Rudoren on her social media posts.

The
idea is to capitalize on the promise of social media’s engagement with
readers while not exposing The Times to a reporter’s unfiltered and
unedited thoughts...

Mr. Kahn described her reporting over the past month as “exemplary.”

Having
taken on one of journalism’s toughest challenges, Ms. Rudoren deserves
every chance to continue to show readers that she is a reporter whose
only interest is in telling the story engagingly and truthfully.

I left this comment:

i guess this is a reporter's revolution in process, changing the matrix
from "i am a newspaper's reporter" to "i report what i observe in
whatever medium is at my disposal".

“We’re concerned by Israel’s lack of response to this provocative Palestinian step that is akin to a declaration of diplomatic warfare,” said Dani Dayan, who heads the Council of Jewish Communities of Judea, Samaria and the Gaza Strip.He added that if the Palestinians knew Israel’s reaction in advance, they would be deterred from turning to the UN.On Wednesday, Dayan sent Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu a letter in which he urged him to annex Area C of the West Bank and to prevent any Palestinian Authority action in that area.Dayan also called on Netanyahu to authorize the Levi Report, which advocates transforming West Bank outposts into legal settlements and states that Israeli building in Area C is legal under international law.Samaria Citizens Committee head Benny Katzover and Binyamin Citizens Committee head Itzik Shadmi wrote letters to parliamentarians in the Likud and Yisrael Beytenu.Katzover and Shadmi called for creating new settlements, authorizing frozen zoning plans for existing ones and approving new public housing in West Bank Jewish communities.

Rice Concedes Error on Libya; G.O.P. Digs In
WASHINGTON — Susan E. Rice may have hoped that paying a conciliatory call on three hostile Senate Republicans on Tuesday would smooth over a festering dispute about the deadly attack on the American diplomatic mission in Benghazi, Libya, and clear a roadblock to her nomination as secretary of state.
Two of the Republicans, Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and Kelly Ayotte of New Hampshire, said they would seek to block Ms. Rice, who according to administration officials remains Mr. Obama’s preferred choice to succeed Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton. The third Republican, Senator John McCain of Arizona, said on Fox that he would be “very hard-pressed” to support Ms. Rice.
“Bottom line, I’m more disturbed than I was before,” Mr. Graham said after the tense, closed-door meeting...

For a column on the need to love Jews more, I see no real need for this phrasing: "To say 'We are deeply entrenched in our narratives of good and evil, victim and perpetrator' is a sentiment I might understand regarding the West Bank or a host of other issues."While I know that Daniel assigns no 'evil' to the residency of Jews in Judea and Samaria (why use a term - the West Bank - which was a geopolitical invention of a King who illegally occupied territory which didn't belong to him in 1950?), as I am not sure if Rabbi Brous does, why give her a pass on that by suggesting it could be "understood"?

Tuesday, November 27, 2012

Noon, on a dirt track in Helmand province, Afghanistan. A soldier
sees something on the ground and kneels down for closer inspection.
Mercifully, it is not an explosive device but a spider. The soldier
screams and jumps back, despite it not being poisonous. If you saw this
you would likely conclude that he has arachnophobia. A reporter would
say the same. Though not a psychiatrist, you would deem yourself fit to
label the soldier thus. But the world-famous news agency Associated
Press (AP) yesterday deemed the attributing of other phobias – in
particular homophobia and Islamophobia – inappropriate. Their new style
guide warns reporters against using phobic terms in "political or social
contexts".

"Homophobia
especially – it's just off the mark. It's ascribing a mental disability
to someone, and suggests a knowledge that we don't have. It seems
inaccurate. Instead, we would use something more neutral: anti-gay, or
some such … We want to be precise and accurate and neutral in our
phrasing."

It is commendable to strive
for accurate, neutral reporting and "homophobia" or "Islamophobia" are
not ideal, as they denote solely the fear motivating prejudice. But they
are the best we have. While fear may not be the only force behind such
attitudes, it is invariably a chief component. AP's assertion that these
words are inaccurate isn't remotely neutral or precise; it reveals a
banquet of their own assumptions about what governs prejudice. It
illustrates the chasm of understanding between an onlooker struggling to
read a situation and a victim who, through jabbing repetition,
comprehends it only too well.

I just watched a BBC story from Ramallah on the exhuming of Arafat's corpse in order to medically examine the remains and check for poisoning.

The question from the London studio byGeeta Guru-Murthy to reporter Richard Galprin (or was itJon Donnison?) was:

"will Israel accept the findings?"

Really?

Will the Arabs accept them is the real question.

If he didn't die from poisoning but rather from a disease, or even...AIDS or some other exotic sickness, will the Arab public accept that?

Why is Israel the sole party to suspect as guilty by the BBC?

Remember

In 2005, the New York Times obtained a copy of Arafat's medical records, which it said showed he died of a massive haemorrhagic stroke that resulted from a bleeding disorder caused by an unknown infection.Independent experts who reviewed the records told the paper that it was highly unlikely that he had been poisoned.

will have far-reaching implications for Israeli policy. That’s because the man most likely to replace Barak, Strategic Affairs Minister and Vice Prime Minister Moshe “Bogie” Ya'alon, disagrees with him on two of Israel’s most contentious issues: Iran’s nuclear program and West Bank settlements...

Though Ya’alon supported the 1993 Oslo Accords, in recent years he has shifted right on the Palestinian issue. At a 2009 conference, he called the group Peace Now a “virus” and said—regarding U.S. pressure over settlements—that he was “not afraid of the Americans.” “From my perspective,” he was quoted as saying, “Jews can and need to live in all of the Land of Israel for all eternity." Ya’alon elaborated on his thoughts in theHa’aretzinterview with Ari Shavit:

Ya’alon: As long as the other side is not ready to recognize our right to exist as the nation-state of the Jewish people, I am not ready to forgo a millimeter. I am not even willing to talk about territory. After land-for-peace became land-for-terror and land-for-rockets, I am no longer willing to bury my head in the sand. In the reality of the Middle East what is needed is stability above all. Stability is achieved not by means of imaginary agreements on the White House lawn but by means of defense, by means of a thick stick and a carrot.

It's, you know, it's obviously intense. I mean you -- you can't help but go there and notice that there is no such thing as regular life. And you know, shops are closed, people are hiding indoors. And it's, you know, for everyday people, they just want it to end. You know, they're not necessarily hugely supporters of Hamas, even though Hamas is democratically elected...to see this person being dragged down a main street while these men on motorcycles are yelling God is great and yelling out that he was a spy, you know, it brings home that this is a place that, you know, there is not a rule of law.

and the clincher:

There is targeting involved in, you know, where the Israelis are striking. You can make arguments about whether it's effective or not. You can -- people will take me to task for this, but even Gazans will tell you, you know, I've stood with many Gazans watching bombs going into buildings, and they were taking picturesThey had a sense of this is non-indiscriminate shelling. There is a specific target, whether it's the correct target, whether other people are going to get, women and children are going to get killed in the process, that is going to happen. But it's not that sense of, you know, indiscriminate.The flip side of that is you never know where a Hamas or an alleged Hamas person may be, where they may have an office in a building like this where, you know, do they have an office on the floor below you? You don't know. And so, Israel considers that a target. And so, they're going to -- if they file missiles into your building, you can very easily get killed.

Tens of thousands of voters, probably more than are subscribed to Haaretz, established their priorities in a quite democratic fashion.

The paper's Chemi Shalev has no alternative, in his eyesm except to suggest an undemocratic resolutuion of the situation, an appeal abroad;

The replacement of well-known Likud Old Guard “princes” such as Benny Begin and Dan Meridor with ultra-nationalists newcomers such as Danny Danon and Moshe Feiglin - coming on the heels of the recent Likud merger with Avigdor Lieberman’s Israel Beiteinu party - is sure to elicit concern in foreign ministries throughout the world and among many Diaspora Jews as well. It may also create new long-term challenges for Israel’s hasbara efforts and for the country’s PR campaign abroad.

Can you imagine how he would have reacted had he been around in 1977 when Menachem begin was elected?

If TIME reacted Begin=Fagin, what is he to do with Feiglin?

But Shalev is not new to this reality. Back in 2003, at a Brookings Institute event, he said

As the voting booths close and the campaign jingles fade, the focus of post-election Israeli politics will be the daunting task of forming a coalition government. The character of the new government will be determined in large part by whether Prime Minister Ariel Sharon can convince Labor Party leader Amram Mitzna to join a coalition government with the Likud. Without the support of the Labor Party, Sharon may be forced to rely on a narrow, unstable coalition of religious and right-wing nationalist parties. The outcome of this coalition-building exercise could significantly impact the future of the peace process as well as U.S. policy in the region.

The same old garbage now as then.

But he does admit:

...one should be cautious about overestimating the degree of potential public disfavor with the new Knesset list. After all, it is not just the Likud Knesset list that has veered to the right, but the entire Israeli electorate, which no longer believes in the peace process and shares the often parochial and belligerent “the whole world is against us anyway” view promoted by many of the Likud’s new stars.

The Likud’s political opponents denounced the list as overly hawkish.“The liberal Likud has lost its soul,” Meretz leader Zehava Gal-On said. “It is scary to imagine what would happen if the Likud will remain in power.”

For someone whose soul was lost years and years ago, that's a lot of chutzpah, Zehava.

The Likud's outsider, Moshe Feiglin, finally realized what I and others have been writing for years. His approach was wrong.

Oh how much money was wasted supporting his Jewish Leadership outfit in its stand-off-on-the-sidelines attitude for almost a decade or so.

But last night, after finally, as of the present, achieving a realistic slot, we read

Feiglin expressed joy that he will finally be entering the Knesset after trying twice before and being blocked by legal challenges initiated by Netanyahu. He credited his decision to tone down his rhetoric and work within the system in Likud rather than try to take it over.“I changed my style but not my values,” Feiglin said. “The journey I began when I said that this is our land will continue now from inside the parliament. My values have gone into the Likud through the front door, enabling us to defend Israel from its enemies and make it into a state of Jewish freedom.”

He was never considered a Likudnik.

I once, almost facetiously, suggested to him to take over a smaller party, like Meretz, as with the Likud he was going nowhere.

Remember the old joke - if my grandmother had wheels she'd have been a bus?Lookee here:

Ben
Caspit writes that one outcome of the Gaza conflict is that when Israel
holds talks with Hamas through Egypt, it is by extension talking with
Iran, which is funding Hamas and pulling its strings from afar.

Ben
Caspit writes that one outcome of the Gaza conflict is that when Israel
holds talks with Hamas through Egypt, it is by extension talking with
Iran, which is funding Hamas and pulling its strings from afar.

Monday, November 26, 2012

Just as an aside, if Wright played a pun on us by writing of "Israel's aggressive settlement program", as if he would wish his readers to
assume Jewish settlement activity, aka establishing Jewish residency in
the Jewish homeland, is "aggression", he's wrong. and better that he
would have written "assertive".

The European Union is recommending a blacklist of "known violent
settlers" who will be blocked from entering EU member states, a Western
diplomat told Haaretz...[after] the consuls general of the EU countries in
East Jerusalem and Ramallah wrote a report dealing with settler violence
against Palestinians in the West Bank, especially the incidents the
settlers refer to as "price tag" revenge attacks.The report recommended that EU headquarters in Brussels draw up a
blacklist of settlers who would be forbidden entry into the 27 EU
states.

...This document, which was obtained by Haaretz, says most of the violent
incidents perpetrated by settlers "appear to be part of a pattern of
coercion aimed at forcing Palestinian communities in Area C to leave
with a view to expanding settlements or outposts." The document also states that the "political strength of the settler
movement has grown" and "the Israeli authorities have generally not
taken firm action against outposts [that are] also illegal under Israeli
law." Given that, it states, a "culture of impunity is which the
violence continues" has developed.

...The United Nations "considers settler
violence as the biggest security threat to its personnel in the West
Bank," the document states.

And there's this:-

Several of the committee experts visited the West Bank and Israel last
week. A Foreign Ministry source said the visit "was totally unbalanced.
Unfortunately, this is typical of some of the European clerical staff."
According to the source, the European diplomats devoted most of their
time to visiting the Palestinian Authority areas, and made several tours
of the region accompanied solely by Palestinian officials. The Foreign Ministry was infuriated when told of the document's
contents, with officials saying that Israel had had no inkling that EU
institutions were preparing any such blacklist. "It's hard to respond to a paper we haven't seen," said Foreign
Ministry spokesman Yigal Palmor. "As for the inflammatory proposal to
refuse to admit what they call 'known violent settlers' because Israel
hasn't put them on trial, there's an internal contradiction there. How
will a person be defined as a 'violent settler' if he hasn't been
convicted? And if he's been convicted, then Israel has brought him to
justice. It seems as if in their eagerness to suggest tough measures,
these esteemed experts neglected simple logic."

Of course, if the EU reps would spend more time with people in the communities of Yesha, acting just a bit more objectively, maybe they would learn something.

Sunday, November 25, 2012

... this is a fact. The Palestinian
leadership, with a couple of happy new exceptions like Fayyad, is just
pathetic or worse. The Palestinians are among the world's most scorned
and dispossessed people, but they've been saddled with the worst
liberation movement in the history of liberation movements.

First
and foremost, if they'd been a nonviolent movement, they'd have had
their state 20 years ago. No understanding at all of either the Jewish
or the American conscience, which resists "resistance" at all costs but
melts at the first sight of a person standing before a tank holding a
rose.

Second,
the PA was until recently just hideously corrupt. Arafat and his
cronies got away with stealing so much money from those poor people.
Completely unconscionable.

Third,
they appear to have no understanding of why they're really losing.
They're losing because American public opinion will never be on their
side. Americans will always back the Jews. To Americans, Jews are nice,
successful people. They're funny. Jerry Seinfeld. Who's gonna be against
Jerry Seinfeld's people?...

... Palestinians? Yes, as Bill Clinton said,
the only Palestinians he knows are college professors and doctors. In
Clinton's experience and in my more limited one, Palestinian Americans
are a high-achieving and very warm people. But all most Americans know
is, they're a bunch of terrorists. Palestinian leadership needs to take
that seriously and change it.
None
of this is meant as a defense of Israeli leadership. They're schmucks,
too, or worse. So I don't really like either side very much, in terms of
their leaders I mean, which is why I don't write about this very often.
But I do know that if Palestinians moved to nonviolence and undertook a
smart campaign to improve their image here, they'd turn things around
on a dime.

About Me

American born, my wife and I moved to Israel in 1970. We have lived at Shiloh together with our family since 1981. I was in the Betar youth movement in the US and UK. I have worked as a political aide to Members of Knesset and a Minister during 1981-1994, lectured at the Academy for National Studies 1977-1994, was director of Israel's Media Watch 1995-2000 and currently, I work at the Menachem Begin Heritage Center in Jerusalem. I was a guest media columnist on media affairs for The Jerusalem Post, op-ed contributor to various journals and for six years had a weekly media show on Arutz 7 radio. I serve as an unofficial spokesperson for the Jewish Communities in Judea & Samaria.